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Apr 26th, 2017
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  1.  
  2.  
  3. They were hovering above an island, side by side, looking down at the sprawling expanse of environmental contradictions surrounded on all sides by ocean that stretched out until it faded into shadow at the horizon line. It didn’t look like a real place at all, even after all the work they’d put into it. More like a cartoonish video game map with your token desert, jungle, snow, and lava levels all tucked up against each other to save space.
  4.  
  5. But that was fine. It didn’t have to be real. Hell, didn’t Karkat keep saying that that was the whole point?
  6.  
  7. “I don’t know,” Dave said. “I still think we should’ve gone with the dong layout. Lush forest at the base, a long peninsula, and finally we scatter our ice zone over glacier islands spurting from the tip. It’d be great, cuz you couldn’t tell unless you were up here like this. Nobody but us would know.”
  8. “There isn’t anybody but us to know,” Karkat said, giving him a disdainful look.
  9. “Yeah, but still,” said Dave. “There’s always a way to fit in more dicks, if you’re creative.”
  10.  
  11. Karkat just groaned and tugged at Dave’s sleeve.
  12. “Okay,” he said, “we’ve verified that it looks vaguely like an island from above, and that it remains mostly stable even when you’re not focused on keeping it together. Now let’s go do something with it. Explore a tower, or something. Why the fuck do you need so many towers and skyscrapers anyway?”
  13. “You know why,” said Dave. He flinched when Karkat elbowed him, but let him tug him down back onto the surface of the island.
  14.  
  15. They landed among a settlement of one and two story buildings that were Dave’s closest approximation to a moderate-sized town’s shopping district.
  16.  
  17. “…What am I looking at?” asked Karkat.
  18. “Okay,” said Dave, sounding mildly bored in that way he always did when he was excited about something but trying to look like he wasn’t. “We’re just about in the middle of town here, so you can get a real great view. Right now we’re at the intersection of Starbucks Street and Walmart Boulevard. Head that way, you’ve got McDonald’s avenue, Dairy Queen Lane, and Burger King Crossing. No Wendies, because she doesn’t play nice with the others. Other direction, you’ve got the wholefoods store that pretends it’s not also Walmart, and then the less branded stuff like Flower Shop Grove and Tattoo Parlor Alley.”
  19. “Okay,” said Karkat, staring down a line of identical buildings sporting green signs. “Is this the normal layout for human towns, or?”
  20.  
  21. “Oh no,” said Dave. “They usually space ‘em out so you got a starbucks every few blocks and such. Which is great when you’re a real town, but for Fakesville this is hells of more organized.”
  22. “Oh,” said Karkat. “Why didn’t you just make one of each building to save space?”
  23. “Clearly you don’t understand capitalism,” Dave said, reaching to ruffle Karkat’s hair. Karkat glared at him, but the venom had been slowly draining from his glares at Dave over time and now they were but a mere shadow of their former self.
  24.  
  25. “I’ll take your word for it,” said Karkat, patting his hair back into place, which only ruffled it up more. “What the fuck is a ‘Star Bucks?’ Human naming conventions are fucking ridiculous, why would you name a building something that tells me nothing about what it is?”
  26. “Trolls didn’t have brands?” asked Dave dubiously.
  27. “Of course trolls had brands,” Karkat grumbled. “They’re just slightly more identifiable than a ‘Wall Mart,’ unless they happen to sell walls in that market, in which case, what the fuck? Speaking of, it is ridiculous that your kind don’t use drones to carry out their construction. I’d be the last person to say drones were a positive thing on Alternia, but they were convenient for some things.”
  28.  
  29. “Don’t worry about it, man,” Dave said. “We had special schoolfeeding to teach us all the brands, with catchy jingles and shit. Trust me, you throw any earth kid living in a first-world country in here, all you gotta do is change the language on the signs and they’d be right at home.”
  30. “That’s… convenient,” said Karkat. “And a little unsettling for reasons I can’t quite place.”
  31. “Yeah,” said Dave, grinning. “Anyway, lemme teach you how humans do coffee.”
  32.  
  33. Without even thinking about it, Dave reached for Karkat’s hand to pull him inside. He didn’t even notice that he’d done it until the bell had chimed and they were in the building, being greeted by the ambient music and the smell of coffee beans. Karkat on the other hand had stopped thinking about anything else the instant Dave’s skin had touched his, and had to focus very hard to look around the building instead of at Dave.
  34.  
  35. Dave noticed Karkat’s discomfort before the cause. He hesitated for a moment, gave Karkat’s hand a gentle squeeze, and then let it slip away without comment.
  36.  
  37. “Alright,” Dave said, stepping up to the counter like he was about to order. The building was a little bit… eerie, actually, without all the people in it. It’d make a good shot for a movie, he thought. Pan over the wood interior, the inset lights, the empty tables and lounge chairs and linger on the dessert display at the unstaffed counter.
  38.  
  39. “So,” he continued. “Everybody gets coffee at Starbucks, this is a fact of life. But for our purposes there’s really only two kinds of people at Starbucks. The overworked, underpaid, jaded barista, and the lone artist tucked into the corner at a laptop, probably at their ‘usual’ table. Usually a writer, but not always, and sometimes they’re just a college student working on a paper. The other customers are just white noise, un-people, completely irrelevant. Anyway. I’m obviously the artist because I’m a gifted boy, which makes you the barista.”
  40.  
  41. Dave put a hand between Karkat’s shoulder blades to guide him back behind the counter, and this time he too was hyper-aware of the warmth beneath his palm. Shit, this was weird. This was definitely different. He’d only just gotten used to touching Karkat being a casual thing, and now suddenly, it wasn’t a casual thing anymore.
  42.  
  43. He felt like his hand was suction-cupped to Karkat’s shirt by his sweaty palm, and that when he pulled it off it would pop just like one and the sound would echo in the empty coffee shop. The worry was doubled by the fact that, lucid or not, this was still technically a dream and his preoccupied thought might just manifest if he wasn’t careful.
  44.  
  45. “I think I can manage ‘jaded,’” Karkat said. He was trying not to breathe too quickly or too deeply, but he couldn’t do anything about his pump biscuit kicking into overdrive. He didn’t even question the sudden shift from guided tour into casting roles.
  46.  
  47. “Yeah, dude,” Dave said, “you were basically born for this. All you gotta do is wear this apron and hate everything.”
  48.  
  49. Karkat’s lip slipped up to flash a disapproving fang, but he took the apron down from off the hook and pulled it over his head. It snagged on a horn and Dave was finally given an excuse to move his hand to fix it. He tied the apron for him while he was at it, all the while resisting the impulsive urge to lean over a little further and press his face into the troll’s messy hair just to see what it would feel like.
  50.  
  51. “I don’t need to know anything about the process of making coffee or what a,” he squinted at a chart on the wall, “venti is?”
  52. “Nope, doesn’t matter,” said Dave. He straightened up and moved to lean against the counter just to put some distance between them. “Listen. The coffee is like, the least important part about starbucks. You don’t go to starbucks for coffee.”
  53. “You don’t go to the coffee shop for coffee,” Karkat repeated dubiously.
  54. “No, bro,” said Dave. “It’s about atmosphere. It’s 10 pm, you can hear the rumble of cars outside and feel the headlights on your back through the huge glass windows. Business has dwindled to the occasional weary student, and the barista’s checking the clock every three minutes or so like if he wants it bad enough it’ll just fast forward an hour until the end of his shift. The lights are low, the music’s just a little too loud, the last dregs of your drink went cold about an hour ago. Atmosphere.”
  55.  
  56. “Okay,” said Karkat. “So what happens next.”
  57. “Yeah, so.” Dave paced around to the other side of the counter, leaning on it with his elbows. “I’ve got a pounding headache so I close my laptop and come up to the counter for another coffee in the fruitless hope the caffeine will soothe the eye strain better than pacing myself and taking breaks. And you say, ‘can I get a name for your order?’”
  58.  
  59. Dave watched him expectantly, until Karkat sighed and stepped up to the register, rubbing at his eyes with both hands.
  60. “Can I get a name for your order?” he repeated in a long-suffering, monotonous drawl.
  61. “Man, you’re a natural at this,” said Dave. He cleared his throat, changing his tone to a suave, professional lilt as he stepped into character. “Sure, we’ll call it ‘Frank,’ after the frank attraction I can feel boiling beneath the pools of your eyes.”
  62. “Oh sweet Empress,” said Karkat.
  63.  
  64. “Yeah, yeah,” said Dave. “Okay, now the important thing is that you don’t write ‘f-r-a-n-k’ on the cup. You don’t write Dave either cuz you don’t know I’m Dave, I’m a charismatic stranger dripping with mystery.”
  65. “You’ll be dripping in half-digested grubloaf if you don’t stop worrying my acidic gastrosac with your inane beastshit,” said Karkat, rolling his eyes, but he picked up a pen and a cup at random and scribbled something on the back.”
  66. “Actually,” said Dave, his tone once again heavy with his intoxicatingly cool drone. “Let’s make that an order for two, pour yourself something nice.”
  67.  
  68. “I thought my shift wasn’t over for an hour,” said Karkat, trying not to smile. Dave could see his lips practically trembling from the effort.
  69. “Shut up, dude, you are the worst at improv,” said Dave. “Just go with it, pour us some drinks and meet me back at my table.”
  70. “Fuck your improv! This goes against everything we know about my character,” said Karkat, crossing his arms over his chest. “He’s here to do his assignment and get the fuck back to his hive, not to give in to pretentious douche residue’s overcooked pickup lines. He’s been here all day watching you scratch your globes, he’s not about to get culled for skipping out on the last hour of his shift to drink fizzling bean paste he despises with a customer that’s been festering in the corner like a puss-filled blister about to burst for about fifty times longer than it takes to drink a coffee and fucking leave.”
  71.  
  72. “Okay, champ, dial it back,” said Dave, settling into his booth and propping up his feet in the seat across from him. “Bring Davey his drink and park your tush.”
  73. “You’re lucky if I don’t squat over a cup and add a secret ingredient to your ‘macchiato,’” said Karkat. Dave thought he sounded entirely too gleeful over the prospect.
  74.  
  75. Eventually though Karkat gave in and slammed two drinks on the table, sending fizz and whipped cream sloshing over the rims of the cups and onto the table. He slumped into the booth across from Dave and folded his arms on the table.
  76. “So what now?” said Karkat. “We drink coffee? We could do that when we’re awake.”
  77. “I told you, man,” Dave shook his head. “The coffee doesn’t matter. Atmosphere. Ambiance. Indie pop and chairs that look like they should be comfortable but actually aren’t.”
  78. “Uh huh,” said Karkat. He picked up his coffee and sipped at it, for a lack of anything better to do.
  79.  
  80. “Yeah,” said Dave. “Ambient as fuck.”
  81. God, the way Karkat tucked his lips over his teeth before taking a drink was just so… Dave ran his fingers through his hair.
  82. “Dave,” Karkat said finally. “Is this a date?”
  83. “Uh, well, yeah, obviously,” Dave said, sitting up straighter. “That’s why you buy the cute barista a coffee, so that he’ll drink coffee with you on, like, a date.”
  84. “Holy fuck,” said Karkat.
  85. “Yeah,” said Dave.
  86.  
  87. Neither of them could make eye contact, not even with Dave’s shades as a buffer.
  88. “So I got a question,” said Dave. “And I think you’re, like, the person to ask cuz you’re like. Well. You’re basically the expert.”
  89. “What?” Karkat asked cautiously. It was a quadrant thing. There was no way it wasn’t a quadrant thing, and now they were going to have to address the giant stinking behemoth in the room.
  90. “What do you, uh…” Dave trailed off, fidgeting. “What do you actually, uh. Do on dates?”
  91. “Oh,” said Karkat. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not. “You talk, I guess.”
  92. “Man,” said Dave. “See, and I’m usually good at that. I’m the talkiest piece of shit this side of nowhere. But, like… about what?”
  93. “About ourselves?” Karkat offered.
  94.  
  95. “Whew,” said Dave, a sound like his soul was escaping his body, and Karkat couldn’t help but laugh.
  96. “Or we could just drink coffee and lob banter at each other until one of us wakes up,” Karkat offered.
  97. “Yeah, I like that one better,” said Dave. “Can we do that, but also like… do that, and also…”
  98. Karkat had the rim of his paper cup pressed to his bottom lip, and was watching him with an almost aggressive anticipation. Hanging on his every stupid, stuttery word.
  99. “Also what?” he said, after nearly thirty seconds had passed and Dave had failed to deliver on his promise of an addendum. “Just fucking say it, Dave. It can’t be any stupider than anything else that’s come out of your shit-stained seedflap.”
  100.  
  101. “I dunno, like, hold hands or something?” Dave said, his voice cracking.
  102. “Well, sure,” said Karkat, like it was no big deal.
  103. “Yeah, okay,” said Dave, also like it was no big deal.
  104. “Give it to me, then,” said Karkat.
  105. “I’ll give it to you hard, baby,” said Dave. He wiped his hand on his cape before extending it over the table toward Karkat.
  106.  
  107. Karkat reached over the table too and sat his palm over Dave’s, curling his fingers around the side of his hand and squeezing gently with his thumb resting over Dave’s fingers.
  108. “This is so fucking gay,” Dave said, squeezing back. Karkat sighed.
  109. “You are so fucking gay,” he said.
  110. “God,” said Dave. “I am so fucking gay.”
  111.  
  112. Dave covered his mouth to stifle a laugh while a thousand different feelings flooded through him at once. Some of them new, most of them good. A lot of them good.
  113.  
  114. Dave picked up his cup because he didn’t know what else to say because none of his thoughts right now were really words. He turned the cup in his hand to see what Karkat had written and was caught off-guard, staring at the last thing he’d expected and the best thing he could possibly imagine.
  115.  
  116. “That’s a dick,” Dave said.
  117. “Yep,” said Karkat smugly.
  118. “That’s a fucking human penis you drew on my cup,” Dave said in an increasingly accusatory tone.
  119. “I learned from the best,” said Karkat.
  120. “I fucking love you,” said Dave.
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